outskirts
Britishplural noun
Explanation
Some people like to live downtown. Others prefer the open spaces of the suburbs. But if you live in between the two, you are in the outskirts, the place where the city ends and the suburbs begin. Outskirts describes the outer edge of a city or town, farthest from the center but still technically part of that place. If you had a city map, you could draw a line on all sides where crowded streets filled with apartment buildings and businesses begin to give way to single-family houses and country roads. You might not get a perfect circle but you will see that outskirts are those border places between the city and the little towns that surround it.
Vocabulary lists containing outskirts
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Example Sentences
Examples are provided to illustrate real-world usage of words in context. Any opinions expressed do not reflect the views of Dictionary.com.
Hama lay on the outskirts of these cultural hubs.
From Science Daily • May 5, 2026
The building hit on the city’s southwestern outskirts hosts luxury apartments and a range of facilities including a gym, carwash, and roof garden less than 5 miles from the Kremlin.
From The Wall Street Journal • May 4, 2026
Bynum, born to a Filipino mother, now lives in the offseason with his Filipino wife and young daughter on the outskirts of Manila.
From Los Angeles Times • May 3, 2026
The following day Buzzard-Quashie says she awoke in her car on the outskirts of Northampton feeling confused.
From BBC • Apr. 30, 2026
Redemption hovered on the outskirts of the picture they made, uncertainty threading through his body.
From "Pet" by Akwaeke Emezi
Definitions and idiom definitions from Dictionary.com Unabridged, based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2023
Idioms from The American Heritage® Idioms Dictionary copyright © 2002, 2001, 1995 by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company.
